British Cactus & Succulent Society

Transcription

1 British Cactus & Succulent Society BCSS Southampton & District Branch September 2014 Newsletter Page 1 Southampton & District Branch Newsletter September 2014 Editorial...1 Announcements...1 Last Month s Meeting...1 Around the Shows...1 Table Show Results...6 Bookwork Corner...7 Forthcoming Events...8 Next Month s Meeting...8 Editorial The last month again seems to have gone by quickly. Was that it for Summer? Or do we still have a few sunny days ahead? At least the weather has been cooler these past few weeks and I ve not had to worry too much about plants cooking themselves in the conservatory. A few plants have been in flower recently my Haworthias and Aloes are doing well, and some of the later flowering cacti or those which produced second flushed have also obliged with flowers. My lithops don t seem to be getting enough sun, hardly any have flowered, but perhaps it s still early in the year. Announcements On Saturday 13 th September, the branch will be taking part in the Romsey Show, and we will have a display and sales table at this event. I think arrangements for staffing the event have already been made, but talk to Ivor Biddlecombe if you need more information. The Portsmouth Autumn Branch Show is due to be held in a month s time (Saturday 4 th October) at Widley. For new members, this is a good opportunity to see hundreds of top quality plants. A copy of the show schedule is available on the front table, and if you are thinking of entering, please contact David Neville for an copy of the schedule. This is the last chance for members to register their interest in attending the Mesemb Study Group event in Banstead, (September 27 th ) a sheet is on Branch Secretary David Neville 6 Parkville Road Swaythling Southampton Hampshire SO16 2JA davnev@btopenworld.com (023) or the front table please ensure you write down your name if you plan on attending! The BCSS recently published the 10 th edition of the Guide to Shows, and as part of our 60 th Anniversary, we are handing out a free copy of this to all our regular attendees. Please see me if you would like a copy. The arrangements for selling raffle tickets at the branch meetings has changed slightly the price per ticket is now 20p (so 1 for a strip of 5) and the tickets will be sold from the plant sales table. Last Month s Meeting Around the Shows Newsletter Editor Vinay Shah 29 Heathlands Road Eastleigh Hampshire SO53 1GU sotonbcss@gmail.com (023) Trevor thanked the branch for inviting him. Or did he invite himself? He mentioned he was trying to visit every branch before they closed, although based on the numbers of people present in the audience he thought we were doing OK. The talk s title of Around the Shows was a clue that the talk would be about Cactus Shows and showing. He did a quick poll on how many people were qualified judges for cacti and succulents? A couple of people put their hands up. And how many exhibited at the last national show, 2 years ago? No one had. And the Zone does not hold a Zone show, and we don t have a Branch Show. Oh dear. We will have to try and change that. He said he would show some plants from shows and how qualified judges had judged them. Through the talk, he would also tell us some wicked wheezes to make showing easier. We started a long time ago with some pictures from a show in Northampton in All those years ago the colours seemed rather different as were people s clothes! We saw David Kirkbright and his daughter Gillian. The Show Secretary was wearing a shiny suit. The hall was relatively empty at the start of the day but within a couple of hours the entries came in and there was barely any room left. We saw a picture of Tom Jenkins, who Trevor described as an interesting and knowledgeable guy. David was an exhibitor with deep pockets and he liked to buy very big plants. These had often been grown in places like The

2 BCSS Southampton & District Branch September 2014 Newsletter Page 2 Canaries or Israel, so they were very spiny and good looking, and won prizes at shows for a year or two. However, after being grown on in English conditions - they became less spiny and also had a check in growth and then they stopped winning prizes. Bored with this, David went back to growing Fuchsias! Trevor said that buying plants in that way is not as satisfying as growing on your plants from seedlings. Anyway that year David won all the points, and we saw a picture mentioning the event from their local paper. Another picture showed a person in a shiny suit and tie, and again, it was the Show Secretary. Trevor did a search on the Internet for the reason to hold a show and the top hit was an article on garden gnomes at Chelsea what s that got to do with showing? Anyway he did list a few reasons: for growers to compete with each other, to see who is the best grower and accumulate the most points, or to be acknowledged as the best grower in the region or country. The exhibits will be of interest to the public and other growers, and will stimulate interest in the hobby. Shows can also make a profit - you can sell plants and refreshments, and also have tombolas and a raffle. This is how their branch generated funds to pay for speakers at their meetings. By 2002, things had progressed and the Show Secretary no longer wore a suit. We saw Barry Tibbetts (who is still around and on the National Shows committee). In those days, they used to use coloured pens to mark the score sheets but now some use computers! We also saw Derek Tribble judging a branch show, with a picture taken through the staging showing him peering at the plant. A class for 1 plant Echeveria subgroup had a nice example of Echeveria laui. This plant is a little harder to grow than other Echeverias since it comes from lower elevations and is trickier. There were lots of Dudleyas there. He thinks they are relatively easy to grow and is able to grow them in a cold greenhouse in the Midlands. Derek gave first prize to Trevor s multi-headed Dudleya gnoma and it also gained a diploma for the best succulent in show - this was to Trvor s utter amazement, and the first time he d got best succulent in a show. Derek actually asked him for a small cutting. Several others followed by asking him for a piece too and soon he had hardly anything left. He re-iterated that he has a low regard for Dudleyas because he considers them easy to grow. He also got first prize for a wonderful woolly plant of Echinocereus delaetii. They also have a class in their show for a flowering cactus, and in this particular year, two entries of the same species - Echinocereus viereckii ssp. morricalii had been entered. Their show was hosted at the Duston Garden Centre. Trevor mentioned that these are great places for holding shows because they ll do it for nothing and there s a steady stream of horticulturally-minded visitors. The garden centre had brought in extra plants for sale, and we saw lots of the grafted coloured gymnos or lollipops as he called them. The problem with these is the tender stock they are grown on. They have been cultivated in greenhouses and don t make the transition to our homes or greenhouses that easily. He also showed a Tephrocactus amongst the garden centre plants - imagine something like this being sold to the public! A picture from 2003 featured Bill and Cathy Darbon (Cathy sadly passed away a year ago). Trevor said she always had an opinionated way of choosing her words. We saw some different plants in flower. Notocactus roseoluteus is now synonymous with Parodia mammulosa. We also saw an Echinopsis Schick hybrid with an ISI number. Echinocereus horizonthalonius is just about impossible to grow. A nice Ariocarpus retusus had lots of wool. There were three superb Mammillarias which would feature again later in the talk. With Haworthia lockwoodii, the Darbons had a lot to say about this plant. It s supposed to look a bit dead, and in habitat the dead leaves around the outside protect the heart of the plant, but they thought it looked too dead! He showed more pictures of more lush examples which perhaps they would have preferred. There were some nice Haworthias and he showed some H. emelaye forms (GM267 and JDV93). He loves Haworthias and wishes he could grow them, but he can t, he loses the roots on them. It was time for some of the wicked wheezes. If you hold a show at a Garden Centre, you'll have barrows available to get plants from the car to the show area. A second tip showed how using stacking crates made life easier - you can carry more plants per trip to the car. A third tip showed how you can make a map inside the crates so that you can fit every thing back easily at the end of the show. You should also make a map for the greenhouse so that you know where to put the plants back. Paul Klaassen suggested that these maps had to be updated each year as the plants got bigger. Trevor said that Barry Tibbetts puts a flower pot of the same size in the tray which makes it even easier to place the pots back. The next picture featured John Watmough who Trevor described as a good guy - he liked John's drole sense of humour. We saw John in action and Trevor commented that he didn t have a suit or bowtie but did have a jacket on. A weird circular green

3 BCSS Southampton & District Branch September 2014 Newsletter Page 3 ring on the table was a ring cristate cucumber - it drew more interest from the public than the cacti and succulents! Next we saw John Watmough's open mouthed expression when faced with this monstrosity. Also on the table was Tylecodon viridiflora - Tylecodons are winter growers - they leaf up in the autumn as temperatures go down, but they flower in the summer. If there are no flowers and no leaves, then it s dormant. The close up photo made it look like an attractive plant, but it s quite straggly in real life. Espostoa nana with a crest was a fluffy white haired plant. There was an interesting cristate of Aeonium arboreum rubra. It s a little like A. Zwartkop but the heads are smaller and not quite so dark. John Watmough saw this and gave it an immediate first in the class for one cristate (Succulents). The proud grower took it along to their Zone show, expecting to repeat his triumph, but the judge there was John Bettley, who thought it was disgusting! He was privileged to judge the Glasgow Show this year and gave a plant of Astrophytum ornatum the best cactus award. There was also a very good plant of Gymnocalycium saglionis which was perhaps slightly better. Both plants were perfect and in good condition, although both would go on and grow bigger. While he was agonising over his decision, the steward told him to not worry about it, since both plants belonged to the same grower. The point of a show is which plant looks best to the public - so he asked a member of the public to decide between the two, and this is how the A. ornatum was chosen. There was another bigger example of the Gymnocalycium in the show, but it was damaged round the back. He gave best succulent to a cristate Euphorbia obesa - he thought it was a wonderful plant. He also liked a plant of Graptopetalum suaveolens. As soon as it was introduced, botanical experts said it was a sedum - so then became Sedum suaveolens. People soon realised not only were they hardy, but they grew like the clappers so you started seeing washing up bowls of it in the shows. It had grown out of favour - but nice to see a decent plant of it at Glasgow. When the name was changed from Graptopetalum to Sedum it also caused problems in shows because the two are in different groups - Sedum versus Echeveria. The Illustrated Handbook of Succulents had it down as a Sedum. Next was an exotic Astrophytum import from Japan. At the Glasgow show, there were 110 classes which he had to judge single-handedly before lunchtime. He thought he was doing quite well for time, however when the classes got to the high 70 s he came across a class for a thematic display which had to be judged as an educational display. That meant having to read what every entrant had written, and in some cases, this meant examining several pages of material. He had about a dozen of these exhibits to judge! Another unusual class was 5 species sown after 1st Jan this was quite interesting and educational for the public, compared to just looking at some of the large cacti in the rest of the show. There were three entries and one of the growers was growing jumbo packs of seed in take away containers - but he had so many, he had to split into 2 entries. The other exhibitor had potted his plants up individually in pots. We saw some of the young plants, including seedlings of Gasteria brachyphylla - it looked like there was one odd seedling amongst the group, which looked different from all the others. Trevor discussed some basic judging principles. One of the main ones is to ensure that all entries conform to the schedule and those that do not should be marked as NAS (not as scheduled). He showed a picture of his guide to shows, with his name written in big red letters on the front. This helped him to find it quickly, if he put it down with a bunch of other papers. He also mentioned it s useful to have a reminder when you get older and someone comes up and asks your name! The size of the entries matters in the restricted pot size classes, and he has a millimetre scale drawn down the side of the handbook - the previous edition had an imperial scale. This is a quick way of checking, people can also use callipers and rulers. The size is measured in different ways. For a round pot, it s across the diameter, and for square pots it s across opposite faces. And it s measured at the rim, not lower down. A tolerance of 3mm is allowed. With some pots you have to be careful because if the plant has stretched the pot, it may not longer conform to the size written on the pot. We saw an example of a plant which had been flagged with too big as the reason for it being NAS. He showed a picture of several entries and asked which ones were NAS? It was a trick question since the class size had been incorrectly documented as 9mm, which is about the size of a thimble! Once corrected to 9cm, one of the entries did have 4 plants whereas all the others had three. He proceeded to show examples of entries at shows which were deemed NAS. At Glasgow, there was a class for 3 cacti and 3 succulents - but one of the entries had 2 cacti and 4 succulents. At a show in 1992, in the Agave group of plants, a plant looked

4 BCSS Southampton & District Branch September 2014 Newsletter Page 4 like Agave stricta / striata and 2 local judges from Kettering were about to give it a first. However, Agaves should have undivided leaves, and on closer inspection, this plant didn t and it was actually Aciphylla squarrosa which is from the carrot family and comes from New Zealand. Do mistakes like this ever happen at National Level? Sometimes you do get plants which are too large. We did see one example of a class for 9 cacti where an Euphorbia obesa was one of the 9 plants. At a Zone 6 show, for a class of One cristate succulent, someone had entered a cristate Echinopsis pachanoi (the San Pedro cactus). Without spines, it does look like a cristate Euphorbia obesa. If you have two equally good plants, the points system can be used to compare the 2 plants and assess their relative merits. The condition of the plant and the maturity and presentation have always been important, but now there s more emphasis on the presentation. In comparing the Guide to Shows Edition 9 vs. Edition 10, there are now no points for rarity any more, and the marks for presentation have gone up. Item Guide v9 Guide v10 general condition 6 8 maturity 5 4 freedom from pests/diseases 2 difficulty of cultivation 3 3 rarity 1 presentation 3 5 To illustrate how the points system is used, Trevor showed a class (one cactus, 110mm) with 2 good plants - Pelecyphora aselliformis vs Ariocarpus. He asked the audience which one they preferred and it was roughly half and half. Both plants were in good condition and he assigned 7 out of 8 to both. For maturity, the Ariocarpus could grow a lot larger, so only scored 2 out of 4. Although the plants are slow growers, and Pelecyphora is prone to red spider, neither poses any great challenge in cultivation, so both scored 1 out of 3 for difficulty. For presentation, the Pelecyphora was in a clean pot with a good label and nice top dressing, but the other plant was in a cracked pot. Item Max Pelecy. Arioc. general condition maturity difficulty of cultivation presentation TOTAL So based on the points system, the Pelecyphora would be the winner. At the BCSS Judges course, it was always mentioned that maturity is important. He showed a group of different Astrophytums. Astrophytum ornatum grows huge in habitat and can become as tall as a person. The plants in front were A. myriostigma and A. capricorne and they are well regarded. He expected the A. myriostigmas to win prizes over the A. ornatums, but the A. ornatums got 1st and 2nd. At Glasgow, in the class for 6 cacti from the same genus judged as a collection, there was an outstanding collection of plants which was better than all the other entries. However, in the central plant - he saw a small number of mealy bug. He was quite worried about how to handle this, since if he didn t give it a first, people would wonder what was wrong with him. He had a word with the shows secretary and in the end he compromised by calling it a minor infestation, which is allowed without seriously penalising the plant. He recalled that at one of the Judge s courses, there was a test to judge a class for 1 cristate cactus. He looked at the plants in the group and one was decent and all the rest looked rubbish, so it was easy to pick out the first place. The students judge the plants in 2 groups and he later overheard some people mentioning mealy bug. It turns out that this plant was a mealy host and the creatures came out in between the 2 groups judging them - all the first group had judged the plant first (citing minor infestation) and everyone in the 2 nd group said the plant was crawling with mealy. On closer examination, he did see there were signs of damage to the epidermis. Sometimes, you don t notice problems, but when plants are taken out of the greenhouse, the insects start to move around and become visible. One of the rules about showing is that you can t have more than one plant in a pot but sometimes it's hard to tell, when you have multiple stems emerging from the ground. A picture from the Zone 6 Show of the South African Ophionella willowmorensis was described by one of the judges as fag ends in an ashtray. It is very rare and relatively new to cultivation. With a Tylecodon was it a single plant or lots of seedlings pricked out into a pot or a plant that suckers? With Sedum, Sedum rubrotinctum Aurora on his patio - when it gets leggy, he grows lots of cuttings in a pot and you can get a big panfull in a short time.

5 BCSS Southampton & District Branch September 2014 Newsletter Page 5 Resuming after the break, at the 2000 National Show, there was a nice plant of Turbinicarpus. Was it on its own roots or grafted? A note under the under the plant said not grafted - but does one automatically believe it? He had put together a few more pictures from various sources. At the 1992 national show Pediocactus knowltonii is so difficult to grow and rare, and it must have been grafted. We saw the plant in habitat where it was much smaller. Revisiting the Mammillarias mentioned earlier, for Mammillaria albiflora the audience did not think it was grafted but he thought it was. The offsets were coming from underneath. With Mammillaria goldii, he was 90% sure it was grafted - it doesn t grow like that on its own roots. With Mammillaria haudeana, he was fairly sure it wasn t grafted - by comparison, another plant of the same species which was grafted looked a lot better. A multi-headed Aztekium hintonii was grafted - it doesn t normally grow as strongly as that. The main reasons for grafting are to speed up a plant s growth. Some plants struggle on their own roots but match it with a good root stock, it can feed and grow much faster. However, some rootstocks can make the plant deformed. When you have coloured or albino cacti with no chlorophyll then the graft is really the only way to help the plant to survive. Pachypodium brevicaule at the last National Show was impressive and we saw a smaller version of it. Grow it on for a few years and after a few years, you can t see the stock. He had since been told of a new technique where seedling P. brevicaule are grafted onto seedling P. lameri - the joint is almost impossible to detect, and the brevicaule will eventually have the vigour of lameri. He showed one of the defects that can cause plants to be marked down. A Ferocactus glaucescens was in very nice condition but a close up showed that it had been dinged and had lost an areole/spine. Wrong cultivation can cause plants to look too lush or bloated. On the judges course, they are always warned about a bias towards white spined plants. We saw a nice Uebelmannia these are entered into the Melocactus group. A plant he lusts after despite it s ugly looks is Pseudolithos cubiformis. A Sarcocaulon peniculinum had leaves coming through but they were only few of them and perhaps the reason it didn t get a prize. With spellings, Trevor discussed Crassula susannae, Euphorbia suzannae, and Aloe suzannae the spellings seem to use s and z interchangeably and you can t always trust the popularity of a particular spelling on Google. Sarcocaulon vanderietiae is hard to spell but we saw how it should look in August. Spotting an interesting plant in a class for a cristate cactus, the plant was Epithelantha micromeris, but his friend s daughter named it as the sofa plant. In a 165mm Echinocactus class, there were only 2 entries anyone entering another plant would have picked up a prize. There was an interesting dilemma with the 2 plants the one on the right was a reasonably sized plant and the one on the left was very immature but still got a 1 st it is quite difficult to grow. At the National there are often displays of related plants. We saw Derek Tribble s display of Adromischus marianae plants. We also saw a large group of conophytums. Societies also put on displays, and we saw Bill Maddams of the Mammillaria Society and Les Delderfield of the Ascpeliad Society. The Haworthia Society also usually have a good display. Another reason to attend the National is to go to the sales areas. You can find some unusual things there, and we saw some Schick hybrids and a multicoloured Euphorbia abdelkuri which had a chlorophyll deficiency. He got a wonderful plant of Euphorbia tuberculata a Japanese hybrid with nice markings and subsequently had problems with western flower thrip sprayed it with herbicide and killed it! Sulcorebutia rauschii violacidermis was a nice plant with reddish/purple skin. At the 2004 National Show, the best cactus was Aztekium ritteri (which didn t appear to be grafted) with one main head and a dozen smaller offsets. The best succulent was a huge Euphorbia horrida from the Darbons. We also saw Gillian Evison fetching a Sedum torulosum from her car. It was time for some more tips. Use bubble wrap to protect the plants from each other. If you do have a choice of car, it's good to have an estate car or one where the boot is a low level so that plants can be placed in and out with less effort. A plan of how you put the big plants in the back of the car is helpful. And placing carpet on the floor of the car stops the plants sliding about. In 2008, the show venue was again humming. Gillian Evison is a wonderful grower and her Pseudolithos was impressive. She got first prize and also won 1st in prize for the class with two plants. The flower pots were nice designs. The Euphorbia horrida from 2004 was here again. In the Lithops group, a big Lapidaria margaretae was nicely presented in a nice pot and top dressing. In one of the Lithops classes there were some beautiful plants,

6 BCSS Southampton & District Branch September 2014 Newsletter Page 6 including a beautiful form with wide open windows. However, there were even better plants which were placed and so this plant didn t even get a prize. Stirling Baker grows some super Haworthias and he had put on an incredible display, with each plant perfect. The pots he uses cost a fortune as does his soil-less compost and top dressing. We saw closes ups of three of the plants he liked from that display. The other classes for haworthias featured more of Stirling s plants. A plant labelled up as a Pgymaecereus should really be entered in the Echinopsis class but it had been given an award in a cereus class. Had somebody made a mistake? It turned out that the plant was actually a Haageocereus tenuis which is OK for cereus. You can't always rely on the names written on the labels, so a judge needs good knowledge of what plants in different genera look like. A Reicheocactus was now Lobivia famitamensis or also Echinopsis famatinensis (n instead of m). All the heads were branching dichotomously and it was an impressive plant. Earlier in the talk we had seen a ring cristate and now we saw another ring cristate of Dudleya albiflora. The best cactus was Gillian Evison s plant of Uebelmannia pectinifera and the best succulent was Euphorbia stellaspina. At the 2012 Show, people were flocking to one of the Czech stands. They had some interesting plants for sale, and some were just in plastic bags and not potted up yet. On the show bench, there was a nice example of Pachypodium brevicaule. Pachypodium horombense looked too good to be true - a lot of nitrogen must have gone into it, if it's on its own roots. The Uebelmania from 2008 was there again, and although it got a first prize, it didn t win best cactus this time. Some years ago - the class for rhipsalis only had a couple of entries and you could get a third by default by just entering any plant. But this year there were 6 of them so it was real competition. A plant from Tina (Wardhaugh?) was originally from Doug Rowland who said it had never grown for him in 20 years. Obregonias were growing well, with nice wool on top. He came across the largest Astrophytum (Digitostigma) caput-medusae he had ever seen. Trevor mentioned that there s a very good BCSS DVD with pictures of all the show plants, available for 6. The crirstate succulent we had seen before won a 1st in the Cristate succulent class and it also won Best Succulent in the 2014 Glasgow Show. The Southfields display featured some nice plants, including those that could win prizes right away - but it's more satisfying to grow them yourself. Someone was selling pieces of Araucaria, the monkey puzzle tree. We also saw some nice Astrophytum capricorne for sale. Next was a picture of a lady from Europe selling soiless mixes, of the type used by Stirling Baker for his plants. She had dozens of different types, along with samples of everything for viewing. A group planting of mixed Lithops allowed you to see how they varied. Some of the selles were selling stems of epiphytic cacti. The best cactus was Opuntia clavarioides. The best succulent was Gillian Evison s plant of Echeveria tolimanensis - it was nice, but Trevor wondered whether it really was the best succulent there?. David Neville mentioned he was on the panel that gave it the prize. Euphorbia susannae. Next we saw Colin Walker s Sansevieria pinguicula - note how good his presentation is, with the fancy pot and the top dressing. He went to say that Colin was going to suggest that in the next National Show, there should be a class for flower pots the audience reaction was mixed, to put it mildly! We finished with a picture of a nice Pseudolithos - he can never aspire to grow this since his greenhouses are quite chilly, but he can admire the efforts of other people who succeed with this plant. Table Show Results Vinay Shah There were 17 entries in the August table show. Open Intermediate Cacti Mammillaria (1) I Biddlecombe M. guelzowiana (2) B Beckerleg M. lenta (3) S Wilson M. duwei (1) I Biddlecombe M.albilanata tegelbergiana (2) T Smith M. rhodantha (3) B Beckerleg M. guelzowiana Succulents Agave (1) T Smith Agave leopoldii (2) B Beckerleg Agave lophantha multicolor (3) I Biddlecombe Agave potatorum marginata (1) I Biddlecombe Agave leopoldii (2) B Beckerleg Agave potatorum (3) Ivor Biddlecombe

7 BCSS Southampton & District Branch September 2014 Newsletter Page 7 Bookwork Corner Autumn is in the air, the hazelnuts are dropping off the hazel bushes, a bumper crop of blackberries is awaiting picking for jam making with surplus plums and apples been passed my way. The swallows are starting to pass back through on the start of the long migration to Africa. We usually see small groups of swallows and house martins to start with before the large flocks of hundreds start to appear. The arrival of wintering waders and brent geese is probably a couple of weeks away yet. It is always amazing how the quiet summer marshes suddenly become alive with the noise of hundreds then thousands of ducks and geese within a space of a few weeks. Not much of note is happening in the cacti house but the annual worry of how all the ones currently sitting outside will fit back in is looming large on the horizon! If we didn t buy any new ones or do any potting up maybe it wouldn t be such a problem. Mark is writing up the cacti he recently potted up and is definitely not impressed with a certain Coryphantha radians. He purchased it from Hollygate nurseries in 2007 and in that time it has grown 14mm wider and 27mm taller. Is this really such a super slow plant or just rubbish culture?? A new book into the library is Lithops flowering stones (Cole, D.; 1988) donated by Jim Roskilly. This has been included as we don t have many books on this interesting group of plants. Chapters cover subjects including morphology, nomenclature, habitat and then detailed descriptions of the taxa. The book contains some excellent photographs of lithops in habitat and close-ups of individual species, including colour variations. A useful book for lithops lovers! Don t forget to have a look at the donated books for sale on the library table. ENJOYED THE LECTURE? THEN ENJOY THE BOOK! August Trevor Wray gave a presentation on the subject Around the shows. A tricky one to recommend books for, try borrowing one of our encyclopaedias such as The New Cactus Lexicon (Hunt), Lexicon of succulent plants (Jacobsen), and brush up on plant health with How to care for your cacti and How to care for your succulents both by Pilbeam. Also have a read of your copy of the Guide to Shows, handed out as part of the branches 60 th Anniversary. All the mentioned books are in the Featured Book Corner. September I am looking forward to tonight s talk on caudiciform succulents from Bob Potter as these have got to be my favourite plants! Luckily I have the perfect book to recommend from the library this month, Caudiciform & pachycaul succulents (Rowley) which is also my favourite book! This book includes plenty of habitat and cultivation photographs with subjects ranging from definition of caudiciforms and pachycauls, through various family groups, bonsai and cultivation to uses as food and medicines. It is written in Gordon Rowley s easy and amusing style making it a good book to read as well as for the pictures. Also have a look at Pachypodium & Adenium (Rowley) for more detailed information on these succulents. Both of these books are to be found in Featured Book Corner. Sue Wilson

8 BCSS Southampton & District Branch September 2014 Newsletter Page 8 Next Month s Meeting Our next meeting will be on 7 th October and will feature a talk by Tony Irons on growing from seed. Apart from the valuable advice on raising seedlings, Tony is a nurserymen and I would expect him to bring along a good selection of sale plants. The September Table Show will consist of the Echinocereus group (cacti) and the Lithops subgroup (succulents). Please note that members can submit more than one entry in any of the classes, and that points will be earned for each placed entry. The Echinocereus Group includes Echinocereus, Morangaya and Wilcoxia. The Lithops subgroup includes Lithops, Dinteranthus and Lapidaria. Do rememeber that for each month s table show, there is also a group for displaying any flowering cactus or succulent plant. A reminder for Branch Committee members that a Branch Committee meeting is due to be held on 30 th September. Forthcoming Events Sat 13 th Sep Southampton Display / Plant Romsey Show, Broadlands Sat 13 th Sep Isle of Wight Mesembryanthemums Part3 (Eddy Harris) Sat 20 th Sep Portsmouth What I Saw Last Winter (Paul Klaassen) Sat 27 th Sep Southampton Branch visit to MSG Show, sales & lecture Banstead, Surrey Tue 30 th Sep Southampton Branch Committee Meeting Sat 4 th Oct Portsmouth Portsmouth Autumn Christ Church Hall, Widley, Waterlooville PO7 5AT Tue 7 th Oct Southampton Growing from Seed (Tony Irons) Sat 11 th Oct Isle of Wight Off The Beaten Track 2 (Rodney Sims) Sat 18 th Oct Portsmouth Mesembs in the Flesh & Digital (Suzanne Mace) Tue 4 th Nov Southampton Highlights of South Africa & Namibia (David Neville) Sat 8 th Nov Isle of Wight Zone 11 Quiz (Hosted by Isle of Wight Branch) Sat 15 th Nov Portsmouth Highlights of South Africa & Namibia (David Neville) Branch website: Facebook : British Cactus & Succulent Society - Southampton & District Branch